


Windigo

by poisontaster



Category: Heroes (TV)
Genre: Abuse of Power, Corruption, Gen, Murder
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-12-15
Updated: 2006-12-15
Packaged: 2018-02-15 18:34:52
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2239131
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/poisontaster/pseuds/poisontaster
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Peter always wanted to be special.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Windigo

**Author's Note:**

> _"Windigo never gives. Windigo only takes. You become a Windigo, you give your life." (Ravenous)_ Set vaguely after "Fallout".

Peter wanted to be special.

On that, they would all agree. He wore it on his sleeve. Peter wanted to be special and though it could be argued—and was, for that matter—that Peter was indeed very _very_ special, the divide between how we see ourselves and how we are seen is sometimes very wide.

It wasn't enough.

He could absorb, like a sponge, but it was only temporary. It didn't last. And pretty soon, the vague, uneasy rumbling of _ordinary_ would come crashing back in on him in gray tinted waves of depression.

His first meeting with Sylar was such a crazy, slapdash affair. He had only the one cryptic message and no idea what it meant. No real understanding of the quirk in his genes that put him so close to his dreams of special and yet so frustratingly distant. No understanding of the clockwork mind of his opponent.

But even so, Peter thought he must have absorbed something then. A seed. A little germination of an idea.

_Want them. Take them apart. Keep what makes them tick. Take. Keep. Become._

Seeds take time to grow. Longer to blossom.

He came out of the coma feeling renewed. Rested. Stronger than ever in his life. And already they were gathering, the ones like Nathan, like Hiro.

_(But not like him. There was no one like him.)_

And their work began. Saving people. Saving the world.

The first time was an accident. He thinks.

Accidents happen, right? Oh, that first. He can't ever forget how it was.

She was so new, so scared, so unbelievably dangerous. He meant only to take a little, like venting a clanging radiator to relieve the pressure within. But when he touched her, when her eyes blew wide with surprise, shock and fear…Peter looked down into her face and knew. _It doesn't have to stop there. I could take it all._

By the time his common-sensible _What am I doing?_ kicked back in, it was too late. Her frozen eyes looked like Isaac's, white and pupilless; her tears had frozen to her pale cheeks.

DL was shouting: _Peter? Peter, what did you do?_ and Peter shook his head.

_I don't know. I don't know._

But really, in his secret heart, he thinks he did.

He thinks he knew all the time.

DL didn't want to get into trouble any more than Peter did, didn't want to hear Nathan's mouth, didn't want to listen to Hiro lecture them about their eternal responsibilities. They hid the body. DL took it deep into the ground and left it there, only to be found by the archaeologists of the future. They went back and DL didn't meet his eyes.

Peter found that it bothered him less than it used to.

He wore his _special_ like an armor.

When they came across Sylar again, he was crazier, muddled by all the minds he'd devoured, the powers he'd stolen. Peter remembered Nathan reading _To Kill a Mockingbird_ to him once, when he was sick—Peter had often been sick—and his soft, unbroken voice saying _Mad dogs must be put down._

He wonders if it would have been different if Nathan had been there. If Nathan would have objected. After exasperation, Nathan's most common expression with him was worry; his night time face, when it was only them, the Petrelli brothers and not the icons they willingly/unwillingly became.

No one objected when Peter stepped forward and put his hands on the madman's clammy, sweating skin. Sylar's mouth opened, spilling nonsense and prophesy and little mewls of pain in equal measure. Peter looked down and felt that little blooming seed inside him turn its face to the sun and take Sylar in.

When he straightened, only DL looked troubled. Was that when he decided? Was it then? Was there ever really a decision to make?

DL was always reckless, impatient. It wasn't hard to convince the others that was what happened. One hothead that burned out too quickly and not Peter's fault at all. It was almost easy. Less difficult than it had been to sneak up behind DL in the first place, for sure.

And then things just went on.

It wasn't like he did it often. He wasn't a _murderer_ , exactly. He's a hero. It's a job. Like professional athletes, doing what they have to, to stay in the game.

Peter had to stay in the game. He's special. The world needs him. It needs him so much.

He always figured Nathan would figure it out first. His brother knows him just that well. As much as they've tried, they've never really had any secrets from each other. None that mattered.

And how could Nathan not know, when the brother that always leaned on him, the brother that always let Nathan clean up his messes suddenly started to stand on his own strong, new legs? Their relationship has always been fixed in space: Peter falls, Nathan flies.

But when he thought about it—and he _did_ think about it, because he was not a stupid man—he always thought about it in terms of Nathan's other dressings down; private, claustrophobic interviews in dark spaces out of the public eye, harsh cut-downs that never let Peter forget that he was the younger, the smaller, the _weaker_ brother.

He never expected Nathan to bring in the others.

He never expected the ringing circle of solemn faces, their dead eyes looking at him like every other villain they've faced down.

It hurts.

It _hurts_ and it makes him angry, that they would come together like this, to sit in judgment of _him_ like they haven’t done the same or worse. Like he's somehow less special than they.

 _You don't understand,_ he says. _It's not like that._

But no one asks him exactly what it's like. They've already made up their minds. Their small, tiny, minds.

And Nathan in front of them, the ringleader, of course, looking as disappointed and disapproving as he ever has.

Seeing them together now, their sameness, Peter thinks he understands then, the realization he's been moving toward all this time, the final flowering growth of that very old seed. It isn't him. It isn't him that's less special. It's all of _them_ , jealous and fearful of what he is. What he can become.

They saw only these few acts, taken out of context and in their eyes, there was no more to be said or done.

 _Maybe,_ Peter thinks. _Maybe it time they see. How special I am._

Peter smiles and only Nathan has the wisdom to look concerned. But it's too late now.

_Nathan, I'm sorry._

_Nathan, I love you._

Nathan shouts, but not soon enough, not fast enough.

Peter spreads his arms, turns his face up to the sky and _takes it all in._


End file.
